Strong sales of Animal Crossing and the 3DS are to thank for Nintendo's high stock.

Nintendo stock is at 2 year record high, thanks to strong sales of overseas titles such as Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which released in the US last month. Nintendo's 3DS console, which kept its position as the best selling console in Japan, also helped contribute to the high stock, and China's recent decision to lift its blanket ban on videogame consoles can also be thanked.

"The stock is up from mixing all these factors," said Takashi Oba, a senior strategist at Okasan Securities Co. "The stock is in a upward trend. There may be some investors who are forced to buy back the shares." The world's largest video-game console maker jumped 4 percent to 14,050 yen, the highest close since July 2011.

Nintendo also revealed a slam-dunk lineup of upcoming games for its 3DS and Wii U consoles in its more recent Nintendo Direct events, which should hopefully be driving more interest for the devices. Having steady, regular releases of quality Nintendo properties is what we really need to see.

Among the games detailed were The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Yoshi's Island for the 3DS, and Super Mario 3D World and Bayonnetta 2 for the Wii U, along with a new entry into Nintendo's flagship mascot fighter: Super Smash Bros. for both systems.

China ending its 13 year ban on videogame is particularly good news, as the Chinese market is one that Nintendo products should do well in, and is quite geographically close to Japan.

Wow... I didn't think they'd be doing this good :PWell good for Nintendo and I am eagerly waiting for a new game to purchase for the WiiU since I just finished the last game I bought and now there isn't really anything I want on the GameStop shelves :(

Good to hear. I couldn't imagine a console war without Nintendo. It would always feel like something is missing. Also, I'm saving for a WiiU so I wouldn't want them to die on me like Sega did once I finally bought the Dreamcast :-(

I bought a 3DS XL not so long ago. I'm doing my part! I'd be very happy if it was as popular here as it is in Japan, as then I'd have a reason to lug the thing about instead of just leaving it at home every day.

Teoes:I bought a 3DS XL not so long ago. I'm doing my part! I'd be very happy if it was as popular here as it is in Japan, as then I'd have a reason to lug the thing about instead of just leaving it at home every day.

Streetpassing and amassing Play Coins are a good reason to bring your 3DS with you, especially if you own games that make good use of those features like the aforementioned Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

I'm relieved to hear some good news for Nintendo. All year long so far it felt like nothing but doom and gloom for them. Hopefully the next few months can see this upward trend continuing.

T-Shirt Turtle:Streetpassing and amassing Play Coins are a good reason to bring your 3DS with you, especially if you own games that make good use of those features like the aforementioned Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Yeah, I knew of stuff like that but just assumed I wouldn't encounter many people on most of my daily travels that even owned a 3DS, let alone also bothered to carry it with them. One way to find our though!

I always knew they would pull through. I mean for months now the 3DS has been to go-to handheld console, and games like Wonderful 101 has gotten me pumped more than any Mario game ever could. (Well okay it doesn't beat Pokemon for me.)

Anyways, you all need to stop hanging around the Escapist for all your Nintendo news.Seriously 80% of everyone on here are either indifferent towards it or predict they are going to fail because of hardware limitations that probably aren't that limiting if game devs put a bit more effort into actually working around their creativity ( you know what they say about creativity and limitations.)

Good to know, but not a surprise. With Animal Crossing and other 2013 3DS games doing so well, I'm not surprised. Even if the Wii U is still a bit dry, once Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, Wind Waker HD, and Mario 3D World come out, the system will be in a better light I believe. I just wish everyone would remember that consoles need time to get more popular, and once the good games come out, the system will sell.

Dragonbums:I always knew they would pull through. I mean for months now the 3DS has been to go-to handheld console, and games like Wonderful 101 has gotten me pumped more than any Mario game ever could. (Well okay it doesn't beat Pokemon for me.)

Anyways, you all need to stop hanging around the Escapist for all your Nintendo news.Seriously 80% of everyone on here are either indifferent towards it or predict they are going to fail because of hardware limitations that probably aren't that limiting if game devs put a bit more effort into actually working around their creativity ( you know what they say about creativity and limitations.)

F*** the haterz, this is good news for everyone Nintendo have their problems and drawbacks but they gain ground on some level.

Anyways, you all need to stop hanging around the Escapist for all your Nintendo news.Seriously 80% of everyone on here are either indifferent towards it or predict they are going to fail because of hardware limitations that probably aren't that limiting if game devs put a bit more effort into actually working around their creativity ( you know what they say about creativity and limitations.)

While I understand the wanting them to fail thing to be stupid, why is it that people are taking indifference as "they obviously hate it"? Seriously, I'm indifferent to a lot of companies, but the way I see the NDF and others saying that 80% of the site either hates Nintendo, which is a complete hyperbole, or is indifferent I call bull on it. Mainly in the fact that indifference really isn't always a bad thing you know, please note I'm taking the "lack of interest" part of the definition. Sorry but this is something I constantly see all the time and it's rather annoying. >.>

OT: Good for Nintendo that they are starting to get up. I've said constantly that the Wii U and the 3DS have basically had a PS3-like launch, just without the ridiculous price (Well originally the 3DS was a little pricy but I digress). By that I mean that they didn't really have any games, but it starts to pick up about a year afterwords.

Anyways, you all need to stop hanging around the Escapist for all your Nintendo news.Seriously 80% of everyone on here are either indifferent towards it or predict they are going to fail because of hardware limitations that probably aren't that limiting if game devs put a bit more effort into actually working around their creativity ( you know what they say about creativity and limitations.)

While I understand the wanting them to fail thing to be stupid, why is it that people are taking indifference as "they obviously hate it"? Seriously, I'm indifferent to a lot of companies, but the way I see the NDF and others saying that 80% of the site either hates Nintendo, which is a complete hyperbole, or is indifferent I call bull on it. Mainly in the fact that indifference really isn't always a bad thing you know, please note I'm taking the "lack of interest" part of the definition. Sorry but this is something I constantly see all the time and it's rather annoying. >.>

OT: Good for Nintendo that they are starting to get up. I've said constantly that the Wii U and the 3DS have basically had a PS3-like launch, just without the ridiculous price (Well originally the 3DS was a little pricy but I digress). By that I mean that they didn't really have any games, but it starts to pick up about a year afterwords.

I'm not the one saying those who are indifferent are haters. That would be the first person who who replied to me. You cannot hate something you are indifferent towards. Those who want to have the "mark to kill" sign above Nintendo's heads are the "haters" so to speak.It kind of shows in how Escapist really brings in Nintendo news.Coverage can go a long way in informing people of what's happening.All the more positive aspects of Nintendo that come on the Escapist are for the most part ignored aside from a select few. (Unless people like Yahtzee or Jim talks about them.) and the negative ones tend to get more feedback.

Anyways, you all need to stop hanging around the Escapist for all your Nintendo news.Seriously 80% of everyone on here are either indifferent towards it or predict they are going to fail because of hardware limitations that probably aren't that limiting if game devs put a bit more effort into actually working around their creativity ( you know what they say about creativity and limitations.)

While I understand the wanting them to fail thing to be stupid, why is it that people are taking indifference as "they obviously hate it"? Seriously, I'm indifferent to a lot of companies, but the way I see the NDF and others saying that 80% of the site either hates Nintendo, which is a complete hyperbole, or is indifferent I call bull on it. Mainly in the fact that indifference really isn't always a bad thing you know, please note I'm taking the "lack of interest" part of the definition. Sorry but this is something I constantly see all the time and it's rather annoying. >.>

OT: Good for Nintendo that they are starting to get up. I've said constantly that the Wii U and the 3DS have basically had a PS3-like launch, just without the ridiculous price (Well originally the 3DS was a little pricy but I digress). By that I mean that they didn't really have any games, but it starts to pick up about a year afterwords.

I'm not the one saying those who are indifferent are haters. That would be the first person who who replied to me. You cannot hate something you are indifferent towards. Those who want to have the "mark to kill" sign above Nintendo's heads are the "haters" so to speak.It kind of shows in how Escapist really brings in Nintendo news.Coverage can go a long way in informing people of what's happening.All the more positive aspects of Nintendo that come on the Escapist are for the most part ignored aside from a select few. (Unless people like Yahtzee or Jim talks about them.) and the negative ones tend to get more feedback.

That same logic can be applied to the other consoles as well because people on this site, and on other sites, will ignore postivie news for more negative news. I've been here for ages and have seen just as many "We Hate Nintendo/MS/Sony/*insert company here*" threads as I've seen positive ones. Negativity always will get more publicity than positivity be it any type of news that's actually out there. I wouldn't have minded it as much but when you combined a statistic that you had made up to describe over half of the Escpaist user base then I take excpetion to that because I not that not every single Escapist member posts in threads or news stories and they just stay in User Groups and talk about what they want. The way your sentence was written equates that over half the Escapist either hates or doesn't care about Nintendo when all you have to go by is some anecdotal information. Better wording would have been "most people I have seen on this site" rather than the blanket 80% of the Escapist. Again, I just notice this a lot of the time and it irritating to be generalized with a large blanket term like that. And for the record I like Nintendo's games, but I'm indifferent to a lot of their policies with only of few of them I personally don't like. *glares at the region locking*

While I understand the wanting them to fail thing to be stupid, why is it that people are taking indifference as "they obviously hate it"? Seriously, I'm indifferent to a lot of companies, but the way I see the NDF and others saying that 80% of the site either hates Nintendo, which is a complete hyperbole, or is indifferent I call bull on it. Mainly in the fact that indifference really isn't always a bad thing you know, please note I'm taking the "lack of interest" part of the definition. Sorry but this is something I constantly see all the time and it's rather annoying. >.>

OT: Good for Nintendo that they are starting to get up. I've said constantly that the Wii U and the 3DS have basically had a PS3-like launch, just without the ridiculous price (Well originally the 3DS was a little pricy but I digress). By that I mean that they didn't really have any games, but it starts to pick up about a year afterwords.

I'm not the one saying those who are indifferent are haters. That would be the first person who who replied to me. You cannot hate something you are indifferent towards. Those who want to have the "mark to kill" sign above Nintendo's heads are the "haters" so to speak.It kind of shows in how Escapist really brings in Nintendo news.Coverage can go a long way in informing people of what's happening.All the more positive aspects of Nintendo that come on the Escapist are for the most part ignored aside from a select few. (Unless people like Yahtzee or Jim talks about them.) and the negative ones tend to get more feedback.

That same logic can be applied to the other consoles as well because people on this site, and on other sites, will ignore postivie news for more negative news. I've been here for ages and have seen just as many "We Hate Nintendo/MS/Sony/*insert company here*" threads as I've seen positive ones. Negativity always will get more publicity than positivity be it any type of news that's actually out there. I wouldn't have minded it as much but when you combined a statistic that you had made up to describe over half of the Escpaist user base then I take excpetion to that because I not that not every single Escapist member posts in threads or news stories and they just stay in User Groups and talk about what they want. The way your sentence was written equates that over half the Escapist either hates or doesn't care about Nintendo when all you have to go by is some anecdotal information. Better wording would have been "most people I have seen on this site" rather than the blanket 80% of the Escapist. Again, I just notice this a lot of the time and it irritating to be generalized with a large blanket term like that. And for the record I like Nintendo's games, but I'm indifferent to a lot of their policies with only of few of them I personally don't like. *glares at the region locking*

I guess I haven't been on the Escapist enough to see the phase will all of the other companies aside from the whole Xbox One deal.I used the 80% thing because in my experience (in other forums not here) when I say "Most People [blank]" they tend to ignore the "most" part in the phrase and go off on me in a similar matter as me generalizing.However I will make sure not to use direct statistics as a substitute for a general opinion on any website unless I have a matter of fact proof like a poll or graph to back that up.

Thanks, and sorry if it sounded like I was raging at you entirely. It was mainly irritation.Believe me the Xbox One thing was worse than the other ones, but usually around every new generation or so there is usually things like this. When it comes to people only listening to what Jim or Yahtzee say that's really always been par for the course you see and I don't think it's ever gonna change. Heck you should have seen how the site was back in February when Sony did their "reveal" of the PS4 but didn't show the console, people were tearing Sony a new one and paving the way saying that MS' console was gonna rock. Heck everyone was talking about how bad the press conference at that reveal was for at least 3 weeks.When it came to the Wii U's launch it was sorta the same way around here because not much was revealed and rumors were spreading around. Don't remember that much about the 3DS launch though, but as I've said before Nintendo in my opinion suffered from a PS3-esque launch in which there weren't really any games for about a year or so into that console/handheld's life and now all the games are coming out for them. To me it seemed like the Wii U was rushed out first to try and get an advantage over the other 2 companies (and while Nintendo does say they aren't in competition, in reality they really are when it comes to sales since they are a business after all) but that didn't go over too well. Nintendo will always have a domination over the handheld market because they can create affordable games and hardware for handhelds, but it's not as easy when it comes consoles themselves. Animal Crossing has really helped them out with their stocks and that's good, so let's see if they can continue this since the stock market is unpredictable at times.